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Premier League football today is fast, exciting, skillful and exhilarating to watch. In fact, it bears almost no resemblance to the football I started watching in the late 1960's. Why is it then that I seem to think that I preferred the old style football to that of today? Is it because my memory is playing tricks? Is it because the old football was better? Is it because I felt so much more a part of it then than I do now? I believe it is a mixture of those three things and I hope I can explain why.

My local team was Watford and I started going to the games in 1968 with my older brother. My dad had used to go, but he had got fed up with modern football'. So as you see, nothing much changes from generation to generation. After five minutes at my first game I fell in love with watching live football, and with Watford Football Club in particular.

In those days Watford were in the old Third Division, although they were promoted to Division Two in my first season of going. In modern parlance they got promoted from league one to the championship. What exactly was wrong with having four divisions all numbered consecutively?

The crowds were small and there was plenty of space to stand on the terraces. Even then I had to take a small box to stand on in case someone big got in my way. I loved it. The atmosphere was electric and the games were full bloodied and colorful.

This is where the first of my suggestions comes into play. My memory is definitely playing tricks. The atmosphere, I would suggest, was probably a very long way from being electric. The terraces were crumbling and dangerous, the refreshment facilities were non existent, and the toilets...well the less said about the toilets the better! I seem to remember going to one game with a female and they found that there weren't actually any ladies toilets in the ground!

The matches themselves were played in good spirit with both teams going at it trying to win the game. The great players I can remember at Watford, Stewart Scullion, Keith Eddy, Johnny Williams, and Duncan Welbourne. This is where the second of my suggestions is relevant. Was the football actually better than it is today? The answer is that of course it wasn't. It was slower and less skillful. In many ways however, that is why I think I preferred it. It was real football. The players were doing what you believed you could do in the local park. They passed the ball, tackled, dribbled and shot. They played the same game that I did with my mates. The football

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